Creation's Crustaceans

God's Wonderful World of Nature

Lobsters, crabs, cray­fish, prawns … seafood lovers everywhere relish the mention of such culinary delights. But there’s much more to know about these shellfish than how tastily they can be served.

They are the largest members of the subphylum known as Crustacea, which has nearly 30,000 species distributed worldwide. Crustaceans range in size from the American lobster, weighing up to 20 kg (44 lb), and the Japanese spider crabwith a leg span of up to 3.7 m (12 ft)to water fleas that can be less than a millimetre in length.1

Most crustaceans live in either fresh or sea water, although
some do live on land, such as Christmas Island Red Crabs (see box below).

These species, however, return to the water when their eggs are ready to hatch. There are few aquatic environments that are not home to some form of crustacean, whether it be in open sea or lakes, sedi­ment at the bottom of the sea, rocks at the waters edge, or in sand, seaweed or mud. Crustaceans live in oceanic trenches at depths of up to 10,000 m, in mountain lakes at altitudes of 5,000 m, and on sunny tropical beaches.

Scientists find it hard to characterize the standard crustacean body because there is such
a variety of forms. The most easily recognisable are the decapodsthose
large crustaceans with 10 legs. They have a number of body segments (known
as somites), which are some­times fused to form rigid areas, or are free
but linked to each other by flexible areas. Most crustaceans have some
sort of shell (called a carapace), which is periodically moulted because
the hard structure prohibits growth.

Evolutionists really have no idea how crustaceans evolved.

A number of crustaceans
are con­sidered by evolutionists to be living fossils because they dont
appear to have changed much over supposedly millions of years. In fact,
evolutionists really have no idea how crustaceans evolved, or how so many
varied species are related to each other within an evolutionary framework.

There is debate as to what
a hypo­thetical ancestor could have looked like, and disagreement about how
crustaceans should be classified.

Evolutionists compare the
anatomy among living spe­cies and study the fossil record, but neither approach
offers any evidence as to how crustaceans evolved. They are still asking themselves
if the crustaceans shell is a primitive struc­ture (because the so-called
living fossils all have it), or if the structure evolved independently.

The
New Encyclopaedia Britannica admits the earliest fossils were already
specialized and that: The fossil record, although fairly rich, has not solved
any of the questions about the early evolution of the Crustacea.2

There is no mystery
for creationists. Having a common Designer explains the similarities
between the creatures, and the fossil record is clearly consistent with
the fact that
crustaceans have always been crustaceans, and have not evolved from non-crustaceans.

Christmas traffic hazard

When the wet season starts on Christmas Island (300 km south of Java,
and 1,300 km from Singapore), about 120 million red crabs (Gecarcoidea
natalis, not pictured) swarm down from the rain­forest to the
sea to mate. Until the mating season, they live in the forest eating
fallen leaves, berries and carrion. Males migrate first, taking 5­7
days to reach the shore, where they burrow into the sand to await
the females, who swarm down two weeks later (three nights before the
new moon). During this amazing migration, countless millions of crabs
must cross the islands roads; around 700,000 to a million are unavoidably
killed by traffic each year (often causing punctures in the process).

Cliffs and beaches are soon covered with red crabs releasing their
egg packages. The larvae then live in the deep ocean for a month
before they all returnincredibly, at the same timeand make a dash
for the rainforest.

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.